This past year was a transformative one for healthcare. From big tech’s entrance into the field to the rise of virtual care to Congress warming to reimbursing innovative care delivery models, the healthcare industry has started to see some significant shifts in the space. The importance placed on value-based care has also been a major driver for industry change for patients, providers and payers. The opportunity to improve patient outcomes while decreasing cost will drive the industry forward and help reshape legacy practices.
In a speech at an Alliance for Connected Care telehealth policy forum in November, CMS (the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) Administrator Seema Verma spoke about how “relentless innovation is a crucial driver in creating value across all industries.” With that sentiment in mind, here are five trends that will impact the health tech landscape in 2019:
Value-based care arrangements will provide opportunity for bipartisanship in 2019
In the current political landscape, the tendency toward partisanship is strong, but the American people want Congress to work together, particularly when it comes to healthcare. Republicans and Democrats should be able to find common ground with value-based care arrangements that incentivize providers to do what’s best for the patient rather than doing the most amount of “things” (i.e. tests, procedures, etc.) to the patient.
According to an NBC News and Wall Street Journal report, healthcare was the No. 1 issue for voters heading to the polls in 2018 – and voter turnout as a percentage of the voting age population was greater than any midterm election since 1914. Both parties will need to come together to get things done that address their constituents’ concerns about healthcare.
The good news is that CMS is asking Congress to enable them to make value-based arrangements accessible. Passage of the bipartisan Reducing Unnecessary Senior Hospitalizations Act (H.R. 6502), or RUSH Act, is an example of how Congressional leaders can work together on a value-based solution that saves the government billions of dollars while delivering better care to patients.
Providers and tech-related services will increase
Tech-enabled medical services are receiving a lot of attention right now; recent acquisitions and the other deals reportedly in the works point to a growing trend. In June, Anthem completed an acquisition of Aspire Health, the nation’s largest provider of non-hospice, community-based palliative care for people facing a serious illness. Landmark Health, a risk-based provider group that provides home-based medical care for patients with complex health needs, was rumored to be for sale early in the year, and Amazon paid nearly $1 billion for pharmacy startup PillPack.
The pace of innovation has traditionally been set by providers, who have more flexibility than payers in creating systemic change. However, this trend is shifting, and tech-enabled services are leading the way. More tech services, such as Aspire’s predictive clinical and claims-based patient algorithms, allows providers to take greater risks at lower cost, which pushes payers and other traditional services toward embracing—and funding—innovation.
Data will transform how providers make decisions
For a long time in healthcare there has been great hope that data will revolutionize healthcare. While it hasn’t quite happened yet, 2019 is when we will really start to see data used in ways that are transformative. The growing implementation of technology developed for healthcare is creating the opportunity to use clinical data in more sophisticated ways, allowing clinicians to make better decisions and deliver better care.
Payers will embrace technology innovation more than ever before
Companies like Bright Health, Devoted, Oscar and Clover are continuing to attract a lot of investment from the venture and private equity world because they’re seeking to offer a better user experience while also collecting and utilizing data in ways that will drive better outcomes—at lower costs. This will create competitive and creative pressures on entrenched payers to embrace new care solutions and otherwise be nimbler.
Private partnerships with healthcare providers will increase
Social determinants of health often prevent certain populations from accessing care in a timely and cost-effective manner. Take transportation, for example: millions of Americans miss or delay medical appointments because they don’t have a ride. However, the shift to value-based care, coupled with a willingness of companies across industries to integrate technologies into each others’ platforms, is creating new and interesting collaborations to address some of these disparities.
Timothy Peck, M.D., is the co-founder and CEO of Call9. He previously held a faculty position at Harvard Medical School and was the chief resident in the emergency department at Beth Israel Deaconess/Harvard.
